Super Bowl a family affair beyond John, Jim Harbaugh

Jan. 31, 2013
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In this November 2011, Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, left, chats with his brother, San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh, center, and their father, Jack, before an NFL football game in Baltimore. The Harbaugh family says they are celebrating that John and Jim will become the first head coaches to go against each other in Sunday's Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans. / Nick Wass, AP

by Gary Mihoces, USA TODAY Sports

by Gary Mihoces, USA TODAY Sports

NEW ORLEANS â?? Long before this duel of brothers in Super Bowl XLVII, John and Jim Harbaugh got pregame-style pep talks from their football coach dad on the way to school. Dino Paganelli and his two brothers dressed in black-and-white stripes for Halloween to be like their officiating father. Peter Hansen sat in the rain as a toddler to watch his father coach Jim Harbaugh as a high school quarterback.

Now, they're all here to participate in the NFL's ultimate game.

Football in the blood? Parental role modeling? Personal choice? For some families, it's a mix of all that, and the stories of how they got here flicker like old home movies. For them, football goes far beyond tossing a ball around the yard or sharing chips and salsa on Super Sunday.

In the past, we've seen quarterback brothers Peyton and Eli Manning, sons of former NFL quarterback Archie, both win Super Bowls. Then there are the Stoops brothers â?? all four were coached in high school by their father, and all went on to become college coaches.

Right now, the Harbaughs are football's first family. Jim's San Francisco 49ers play older brother John's Baltimore Ravens in the first brother vs. brother head coaching matchup in Super Bowl history â?? the Har-bowl.

Parents Jack and Jackie, both in their 70s, live in the Milwaukee area. They won't be wearing 49ers red or Ravens purple. You win some, you lose some â?? in bowling terms, they're guaranteed a split. They got a taste of it in 2011 when the Ravens beat the 49ers in the regular season.

"That thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, and on Sunday night we're going to experience both of those great emotions," says Jack.

"We're going to hug both of them," Jackie says.

The brothers will take the field with full tanks of competitive fire. Jack coached them up on that when he was at Iowa in the early 1970s and the boys had sad faces as he drove them to elementary school on cold mornings. "We will attack this day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind!'' Jack, who coached in high school and college more than four decades, would say.

Says John: "My dad's leadership style as a coach was enthusiasm. â?¦ He was a go-getter, the best motivator I've ever heard.''

Jack always told the boys that they keep score for a reason, so play to win. Now, the parents await the score.

Carl Paganelli doesn't care about the score. His son Dino will officiate Sunday as the back judge. His other two sons, Perry and Carl, also are NFL officials. Both have worked Super Bowls.

"I'll be watching the officials more than I do the game," says the father.

As an assistant coach with the 49ers, Peter Hansen will be on the outskirts of the Harbaugh spotlight. It took Hansen a while to catch the coaching bug, but this is also a milestone moment for him and his dad, Earl, still the coach at Palo Alto (Calif.) High.

Others decided long ago they would be coaches. When Bill Belichick was in junior high in Annapolis, Md., he helped his late father Steve, a longtime assistant at Navy, pore over game films and prepare scouting reports. Belichick has won three Super Bowls as coach of the New England Patriots.

In Youngstown, Ohio, four Stoops brothers helped their dad and coach, Ron Sr., set up the projector at home, too. Now, Bob Stoops is coach at Oklahoma, where Mike is defensive coordinator. Mark is the new coach at Kentucky. Ron Jr. is an assistant at Youngstown State. In 1988, Ron Sr. suffered a fatal heart while coaching a game. Ron Jr. was an assistant for the opposing team. This is a classic football family, too.

But just because football is the family business doesn't mean you have to join the firm. Jack Harbaugh takes no credit for instilling coaching into Jim and John.

"I don't know if we instilled anything, but I think they watched. They observed and they saw things that they liked,'' says Jack.

Bo and the boys

Deluged by interview requests, Jack and Jackie held a press conference this week in a packed ballroom at the media center. They said they viewed the attention on them as a tribute to all the parents of players and coaches in the game.

But they're a family in which one of mom's pet sayings is "one game at a time." Says Jack, "If I had a dollar for every time I've heard her say that."

The Harbaughs met while students at Bowling Green in Ohio. Jack played football. He was getting started in high school coaching near Toledo when the boys were born 15 months apart in the early '60s. Jack figures they moved 17 times in his 43-year career, which included nine college jobs. He calls Jackie "the rock." She sold and bought the houses and got the kids in schools.

Jackie tutored players at times. Daughter, Joani, younger sister to the boys, became an expert at splicing game films. "I didn't know I was in a coaching environment, I just felt that was how we lived,'' says Joani, wife of Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean.

The boys absorbed all of it.

"I think everything that we are as coaches goes back to when we were kids," John says. "So (it was) not so much about watching Super Bowls together. â?¦ Growing up as Jack Harbaugh's son, who coached for several years at the University of Michigan for Bo Schembechler, that's what molded us.''

Jack's seven-year run at Michigan (1973-1979) came as Jim and John were approaching junior high. The boys roamed the locker room. The practice field was their playground. They had all the wristbands any kids could want. Sometimes, they wrote the No. 7 of then-star quarterback Rick Leach on them and sold them at school.

Jack credits his wife with bringing the boys to his work.

"She wanted her children to know what they're father did," Jack says. " â?¦ I can remember when they could just barely walk. â?¦ They were piling up dummies and they learned they could throw the ball around.''

During his stints at Iowa and Michigan, players would come to their home for Thursday night dinners. "Jackie would cook a great meal for them, and then pretty soon they're wrestling on the floor (with the boys)," Jack says.

Jim recalls a 1970s song, "Cat's in the Cradle," by the late Harry Chapin, about a son longing to be like his dad. The son asks, "When you comin' home dad?" The dad responds, "I don't know when, but we'll get together then son."

But the song was about a father who was never around. Jim Harbaugh said that was the opposite of his dad.

"When we were growing up, my dad would play catch with us, he would take us to games, and most of all he believed in us. We grew up just like him," Jim says.

After starring as a quarterback at Michigan, Jim was a first-round draft pick of the Chicago Bears in 1987. He played in the NFL until 2001 and went into coaching. After winning stints at the University of San Diego and Stanford, he landed the 49ers job two seasons ago.

Jim set his path in high school: "His goal was after playing as long as he could, he wanted to coach," says Jack.

After John's playing career at a defensive back at Miami University of Ohio, the family wasn't sure which field he would choose. Law school and politics were possibilities. Jackie was excited about that.

But one night at dinner, he told his mother he might try coaching. "To which Jackie went face down in the mashed potatoes," Jack says.

Jackie clarifies that. "There were no mashed potatoes," she says. "I saw that look in his eyes and my feeling was, 'You have to do what you want to do.' ''

John joined Jack's staff at Western Michigan as a graduate assistant (while living at home). He worked his way up to an NFL job as a Philadelphia Eagles assistant. In 2008, Baltimore called.

The brothers' teams have rugged lines on both sides of the ball. Jack and Schembechler liked that. Both teams pound the defense with the running game. Jack says football is "blocking and tackle and running and chasing."

But the Harbaughs aren't carbon copies of their dad. When Jack was coach at Western Kentucky (1989-2002), Jim always wanted him to pass more.

"I think there was one time where he called a pass when I was at one of his games," Jim says. "And it did work. It went for a touchdown."

Dad made the calls

Carl Paganelli, 73, of Wyoming, Mich., officiated high school and college football for about three decades. He officiated in the United States Football League and World League. He's been a supervisor of officials for college conferences and Arena Football.

His three sons are NFL whistle blowers now. Perry is 55, and Dino is 45. The other son, also named Carl, is 52. They live in Michigan, where as kids they showed their stripes.

"They used to dress up as officials for Halloween. We used to play out in the front yard, and everybody was an official. The kids, they would make calls and things like that," says Carl (Carl T. in the family to distinguish him from son Carl).

In junior high, they started going to high school games he officiated. On drives home, they asked about calls he made. They all played high school football, but they also got into officiating as teens.

"The Catholic league used to play on Sunday. We would go to mass and after mass go right outside because the football field was right there and officiate," Carl says.

Sons Carl and Perry officiated Super Bowl XLI together in Miami in 2007. Carl has worked three of them. It's Dino's turn.

"Dino is working a Super Bowl after six years in the NFL. It's quite remarkable what these young men have accomplished in their lifetime already," says their father, Carl, who will be at the game with his wife, Mary.

The Paganellis have dealt with suffering and loss.

Dino's wife, Christy, died from melanoma in 2011 at age 40, leaving Dino and three young children.

Son Carl's wife, Cathy, recently completed chemotherapy for cancer. The family says she is doing well.

"During the hard times the boys were able to always officiate. That's the way the girls wanted it," says their mother, Mary. "The NFL officiating family is a very special. They have done so much for our family. Their support has been overwhelming."

Dino's children are Brady, 13; Jake, 12, and Katelyn, 5. Their grandfather says Brady and Jake are getting to know the rule book.

"It's remarkable â?? after being around dad and their uncles and grandpa so much talking football â?? what they know about things like pass interference and offensive pass interference," Carl says. "The little girl is in soccer and softball. â?¦ You'll see more Paganellis coming up in a number of years in officiating."

Mary and Carl have a ritual. "When the officials come out of the locker room, we hold hands say a silent prayer and just feel how lucky we are and so proud of what the boys have done," Carl says.

Drawn to coaching

Peter Hansen doesn't recall specifics from Jim Harbaugh's playing days under his father, Earl, at Palo Alto High School.

"I was going to the games as a little 2-year-old," Hansen says. "The strongest memory I have is that the rivalry games was in a downpour. I sat with my mom under one of those clear painter's tarps."

After playing football and basketball at Arizona, the 6-foot-8 Hansen played for a pro football club in France in 2003 (the Cannes Iron Mask). He played basketball for Club Falcon in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2003-04.

In Denmark, he did some youth basketball coaching. "We had to coach the younger kids in the club. I was kind of forced into it because I was there. And then I started feeling like I liked it," he said.

He hadn't grown up itching to coach.

"All my life, people asked me if I was going to coach like my dad," and I always said no," he says. "But then that experience, I guess it kind of triggered the coaching bug in me."

He returned to the USA to coach four years under his father. Family networking helps. Hansen became a strength and conditioning intern at Stanford under Harbaugh in 2008.

"That's how I got my foot in the door," says Hansen, who later became a Stanford assistant and moved with Harbaugh to the 49ers two seasons ago. He does video work with the defense and runs the scout team, simulating the Ravens this week. Now, he's in the Super Bowl. His dad and mother, Marilyn, will be there.

If the 49ers win, the Hansens will celebrate. Jack and Jackie Harbaugh know their deal is different.

Jack also points out that Jim's oldest son, Jay, works for uncle John as a coaching intern with the Ravens. He's doing video work and assisting with strength and conditioning.

"You've got father and son competing against each other on Sunday night as well," says Jack.

But the marquee match-up is Jim vs. John.

Jack says his sons had one request of their parents: "Both of them have shared this with us: 'Mom and dad, please promise us that you will enjoy this, enjoy this experience. That's all we're asking."